Tullow Oil PLC

Tullow Oil PLC is named after a small town in Ireland which was home to its Chief Executive Officer, Aidan Heavey, who founded the company in 1985. It is now based in London, UK, but describes itself as “Africa’s leading independent oil company.” In 2010 it reported revenues of more than US$1, billion and US$234 million profits.

For the first 15 years of its life, Tullow remained a small operator, with interests in South Asia and Europe and annual revenues below US$ 10 million. In early 2000 it bought some productive North Sea gas fields from BP but also began to turn its attention to exploration in Africa. In 2004 it bought Energy Africa and the following year was boosted by gas discoveries in Gabon and Mauritania. The company’s growth was consolidated in 2006 by a series of oil and gas discoveries in the Ugandan exploration areas it had acquired from Energy Africa. The same year it bought the Australian company, Hardman Resources, also taking over their Ugandan exploration licences. Further success came in 2007 with the company’s largest ever discovery, in offshore Ghana. Tullow is now exploring in Kenya and Ethiopia and has made recent discoveries in Sierra Leone.

The company now holds more than 100 exploration licences and interests in 67 productive fields spread across 22 countries worldwide. Platts, a specialist publication reporting on extractive industries, ranks it 251 out of the world’s 500 largest oil companies.

Tullow is listed on the London Stock Exchange, where it is one of 100 companies included in the FTSE share index, and on stock exchanges in Ireland and Ghana.